Laos forum

Phongsali Extreme

somsai

Joined Travelfish1st March, 2006Location United StatesPosts: 567

Here's the hook.

" when I arrived, I already felt as a stirring "electric" in the village. Many are drunk. A woman dancing alone, barefoot on the mud, it seems "elsewhere", as in a trance. In some places there are altercations, some even fought violently with blows from fists and logs. And a gun.
Everything went very quickly A woman screamed, a man too. A shot was fired. The woman was shot. She fell in the mud. The bullet went through his neck, blood spreading on the wetland. It screams, it screams"

Above is one of the surreal scenes amongst many from a treasure of a journal that was sent to me by a French guy.

He sent it to me a year ago but I'm just now gotten around to pasing it onto Google translator and then onto my blog. It's long, very long. They hike for months among the minorities of Phongsali province. He is mostly interested in the people and gives very accurate descriptions of many facets of thier culture. If you can put up with the sometimes clunky translations from Google sometimes it shines.

My French Language abilities are rusty and pretty much restricted to when I hit my thumb with a hammer.